


All-American Boy

by liamthebastard



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff and Angst, Fourth of July, M/M, Pining, Skinny Dipping, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 06:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1540988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liamthebastard/pseuds/liamthebastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's in love with Steve.<br/>Steve is dating Janet. <br/>It's all very high school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All-American Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of the song All-American Boy by Steve Grand.

It’s late, later than any of them should really be out, but it’s not like anyone was looking for them. The only ones who might care are Steve’s mom and Bruce’s dad, but they’re both sound asleep. Nat’s parents haven’t been around for years, Clint’s are out of town, Thor’s parents are just thrilled he isn’t in jail like his brother, and lord knows Tony could do just about anything and his parents wouldn’t care. Steve’s brought Jan along, and Tony tries not to glare at her while the two of them sway in front of the bonfire, Steve glancing up now and then to smile at Tony. 

He opts to sit by the fire, bottle of whisky in hand while the kids around him drink and laugh. It’s the Fourth of July, he shouldn’t be this down. Clint and Natasha always have the best fireworks, Bruce is well on his way to becoming so drunk his skin starts to turn green, and it’s Steve’s birthday to boot. Things should be great. But they aren’t, because he might just be the teeniest tiniest bit in love with his best friend. He’s about to leave, make up some emergency in his lab if anyone asks, when Steve sits down next to him while Jan steps away from the blaring music with her phone pressed to her ear.

“Hank?” Tony asks, passing the bottle to Steve, who takes a swig. He spills a few drops on his jeans, a bit of it landing on the gold skin that’s showing through the tears in them. 

“You know it is,” Steve replies, shrugging. “I’m not sure why she’s with me,” he continues, while Tony takes out two cigarettes from his pocket and hands one to Steve, who takes it and lights it off the fire while Tony does the same. “She hates this, you know.”

Tony grins. “Yeah, I know,” he says, taking a drag and puffing the smoke right into Steve’s face. Steve laughs, waving the smoke away, and Tony freezes, caught in the way his eyes and smile play with the fire and moonlight. It’s beautiful, and Tony can’t breathe. A second later, Jan calls him, shattering the moment, and Steve shoots Tony an apologetic look before putting his cigarette out and leaping up to talk to his girl. He can hear them starting to argue again, can hear the way Jan’s voice is getting high-pitched and rapid and how Steve’s is getting deeper and rougher in his anger. 

He knows better than to get his hopes up; Steve and Jan fight all the time, usually something involving Hank, but they haven’t broken up yet. His stomach feels sour, but Tony ignores the feeling, knocking back more whisky in an attempt to get roaring drunk so he can blame the alcohol for his melancholy instead a certain blond. 

Jan and Steve have vanished, probably wandered off into the trees for some post-argument action. Tony’s had his bottle confiscated by a disapproving Natasha by the time Steve appears at his side, alone, cigarette already between his lips and lit. 

“Lake?” he says, invoking an old code he and Tony had established as preteens. 

Tony nods, getting up and swaying a bit from the drink. Steve steadies him with an arm around his waist, making Tony’s heart flutter in his chest, and they walk to the docks like that, Steve supporting Tony. The brunet watches him as they walk, drinking in the way his lips look in the moonlight, all soft and pink and begging for Tony to make his move. But he can’t, not with Steve. Steve’s too good for a guy like him, even if he _did_ swing that way, which all evidence says he doesn’t. Tony’s not exactly been discreet with pansexuality, and while Steve has never judged or even said something offensive, he also hasn’t indicated any type of interest. 

“You sober enough to swim?” Steve asks, letting Tony go so he can take off his shoes and drop his jeans and t-shirt on the ground, followed immediately by his boxers, and Tony has to look away or he’s going to embarrass himself. 

“Yeah, Nat took my drink like the second you and Jan left,” Tony says, sliding his shoes, shirt and jeans off but leaving the boxers until Steve is walking away towards the edge of the dock. He drops them quickly, and then sprints forward with a yell and leaps into the water, the chill of the pond shocking what bit of drunkenness he was feeling right out of his system. Steve laughs and follows suit, the resulting splash drenching Tony’s face. 

Steve resurfaces a few inches from Tony, just close enough that Tony can feel his warmth through the water. “Jan and I broke up,” Steve says seriously, and Tony’s heart jumps for joy even as he tries to look sympathetic. 

“I– I’m sorry man, what happened?” Tony asks. He can be there for his friend, even if a part of him is _ecstatic_ that Steve and Jan are done. 

Steve shrugs, flipping onto his back and floating. He’s silent until Tony flips to float alongside him, both of them staring up at the stars above them, watching where, in a few hours, Clint and Natasha will detonate enough explosives for a small army base. “I told her the truth. That she’s just using me as an excuse, so she won’t have to face how she feels about Hank. She got mad, cussed a lot, but in the end, I was right. So we ended it. I think she’s at Hank’s right now, maybe they’ll work things out.” 

Tony makes a noncommittal sound in his throat, agreeing on that much at least. Jan’s been in love with Hank for as long as any of them can remember, and has been denying it at least that long. Hank, brilliant though he is, has all the social skills of a rock, and about the same amount of emotional sensitivity as the selfsame stone. He probably had no clue up until now how Jan feels about him, but Tony’s pretty sure it’s reciprocated. He hopes so. It’s easier to feel generous towards Jan when she isn’t wrapped around Steve like a creeping vine. 

Tony turns his head to say something to Steve, only to find that he’s slid away, and Steve has disappeared, most likely underwater about to– Tony’s flipped over a moment later, dropped into the water and comes up spluttering, way too close to Steve for him to be comfortable. “You asshole!” Tony exclaims, spitting out pond water and wiping the streams of it away from his eyes. 

But he can’t be too angry, because Steve is so close, and he’s laughing, and Tony blames the whisky and adrenaline for what he does next, otherwise it’s just so stupid his brain might self-destruct considering it. He moves forward quickly in the water, pressing his lips softly against Steve’s but jerks back a second later when Steve stiffens up. 

“Oh god, I’m sorry, shit, fuck, I’m so sorry, I’m drunk and that just– that wasn’t–” Tony panics, and starts swimming to shore as fast as he can, grabs his clothes and sprints for the pickup. He just _had_ to catch a ride with Steve here, didn’t he? He couldn’t have just taken any of the dozen stupid cars in his garage, no, he _had_ to ride with Steve, leaving him no option but to wait for the boy, or to try running home, but considering he lived on the other side of town that probably wouldn’t work. 

He was still dripping wet, but he tugged his clothes on anyway, staying barefoot as he climbed into the back of the truck. Maybe Steve would just forget he existed and he could ride in the back until they got near enough to his house that he could jump out and maybe get lucky enough to die on impact. 

In the distance he can hear the party still going– it sounded like Thor and Bruce were getting into their traditional drunken brawl, with Nat and Clint cheering loudly from the sidelines. Under that, there’s music, and the sound of cicadas and crickets, and something else. Something familiar…

“…ny! Tony! Where are you? Tony!” 

Great. Steve’s looking for him. Well too damn bad, Tony isn’t in the mood to get let down easy, not right now. He just wants to wallow in his own idiocy for a bit, and he can’t do that with Steve’s sympathetic gaze on him. It’ll just make him sick to his stomach, the same way the thought is. 

He’s still shouting, it sounds like he’s going through the forest in a grid, trying to find his friend. Tony hunkers down out of sight and keeps quiet as Steve approaches, but it’s no use. Steve knows him too well, knows that when he’s hurt or upset he likes to hide, so after checking the cab of the truck, he sticks his head over the lip of the truck bed. 

“Tony, you scared the hell out of me, what did you think you were doing, running off like that?” Steve scolds, jumping up into the bed and sitting down next to where Tony’s curled up. He’s just got his boxers on, and he’s barefoot, soaking wet still. He must’ve just yanked on enough to preserve his modesty before coming after Tony. 

Tony mumbles something under his breath, and Steve doesn’t bother asking him to clarify, already deep into his rant. “You could’ve gotten hurt, and I didn’t know where you were, I thought maybe you’d run towards the main road, and you know you could’ve gotten hit. You’re not invincible, Stark, you’ve got to be more careful or–”

“Or what Steve?” Tony finally explodes, sitting upright. “Or I’ll get hurt? Newsflash, I get hurt a lot, and a few bumps and bruises are hardly the worst of it. It’s not _important_.” They’ve had this argument before, it always ends with Steve angry and refusing to speak to Tony for a few days while Tony fumes at Steve’s misplaced protective streak. Tony’s hardly weak; he doesn’t need the golden boy taking care of him, even if they are best friends. 

“It is _so_ important, Tony, and you can’t just run off after something like that, we need to _talk_ about it!” Steve shouts back, and that’s out of the norm. Usually when Tony runs away rather than talk, Steve lets the issue lie, and doesn’t push, until finally Tony opens up on his own. Now, he pushes, and Tony isn’t sure how he feels about it. “We’re talking, and neither of us are leaving this truck until you’ve listened to me.”

“What, until I’ve listened to you let me down easy? I’ve heard you do it to enough girls, Steve, I don’t need to hear it again,” Tony spits. It’s not strictly true, Steve’s only done it once that Tony knows of, but it was kind and gentle enough that even _thinking_ of Steve aiming it at him makes Tony want to punch him square in the mouth. 

Steve keeps trying to talk, but Tony doesn’t want to hear. “No, I’m not going to deal with this. I’m drunk, and stupid, and we don’t have to talk about how you’re straight and not interest– mmph!” Steve cuts him off by surging forward and crushing their lips together. Tony responds on instinct, hands rising to grip at Steve’s shoulders, trying to get him closer, until what’s happening registers, and he pushes Steve away with a gasp. “What the _hell_ , Steve!”

“You wouldn’t let me talk. So I figured, actions speak louder than words,” Steve says, eyes intense in the darkness. Tony’s mouth guppies, trying to find something to say, and Steve grins when nothing comes out. “That worked better than I thought. Now, listen. I’m not letting you down easy, Tony. I want this, I want _you_.”

“But– Jan,” Tony protests weakly, then wonders why in the hell he’s arguing when literally every dream he’s been having since grade six is coming true. 

Steve looks guilty for a second. “Maybe she wasn’t the only one using us as an excuse. I didn’t want to mess this up,” Steve admits. 

Tony hits him. “You dick, you _know_ I’m not straight, why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Just because you’re pan doesn’t mean you want to fondue with everyone,” Steve says, “You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

And suddenly Tony remembers a fight from their freshmen year, when a couple of guys thought that because he was out it meant he was up for anything with anyone. Tony had hauled off and punched them right in the face just as Steve arrived, had yelled at them all that he wouldn’t sleep with meatheads like them if they were last people on earth, and that being out didn’t mean being easy. Steve had looked bright red, and at the time, Tony had assumed it was with anger, just another protective instinct over his best friend, but now… well, maybe it had been something else. 

“Oh. My. _God_ ,” Tony says. “You mean we could’ve been doing this _for years_?” Oh he is so figuring out a way to go back in time and punch himself in the face. It’s happening. 

Steve blushes bright red, and Tony can’t help it, he leans in to kiss him, but catches himself a few centimeters away. “This alright?” he checks. Steve rolls his eyes and brings a hand up to his cheek. 

“Definitely okay,” he says, and drags Tony closer until their lips brush. 

And then the fireworks kick in. 

No, literally, the fireworks start going off and Tony jumps so high at the first boom he bangs their foreheads together and his ears start to ring. Clint’s whooping laughter can be heard from the truck, and soon both Tony and Steve are chuckling too. 

“C’mon, birthday boy, let’s go watch the show,” Tony says, sitting up and holding out his hand for Steve to grab. Steve laces their fingers together and they walk back to the bonfire, linked together. Nobody says anything when they arrive, even though Steve is still in boxers and they both have totally screwed up hair, Tony just knows it. Natasha gives them a few appraising looks, but she seems pleased more than angry, so they must have her approval. Everybody else just cheers, and immediately leaps into Happy Birthday, making Steve turn bright pink in the firelight. 

Tony settles down with Steve next to him against a log, looking up at the sky for the fireworks. Steve wraps an arm around his shoulder and tugs Tony up against his chest. 

“Best birthday ever,” Steve asserts, and drops a kiss to Tony’s forehead. 

Tony grins. Yeah, that’d be accurate.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhhh why do I keep writing one-shots.


End file.
